Equifax Receives Approval Under SAFE-BioPharma Trust Framework

ATLANTA, April 18, 2013 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Equifax Inc. (NYSE:EFX), a leading provider of identity authentication services and fraud mitigation solutions to major organizations in the public sector, finance, and healthcare industries, today announced that its Identity Proofing platform has been approved as an Identity Proofing Component member of the SAFE-BioPharma Trust Framework.

"Equifax is a leading identity proofing provider for the public sector," said Rajib Roy, president, Equifax Identity and Fraud Solutions. "Our pedigree in the federal government extends across multiple agencies where we support proofing of trusted identities for both internal and external users. Our approval at FICAM Assurance Level 3 shows that we understand the importance of protecting individual user's identities as well as agency data, while also assisting agencies to reduce loss from fraud, waste, and abuse."

Equifax has successfully demonstrated full comparability with the elements and outcomes for identity proofing subscribers for electronic identity credentials at NIST Level of Assurance (LOA) 2 and LOA3 by SAFE-BioPharma, a U.S. Government-approved Trusted Framework provider. This certification means that identity credentials can be trusted and used at known levels of assurance by any U.S. federal entity.

"SAFE-BioPharma is pleased to welcome Equifax as an Identity Provider in our Trust Framework," said Peter Alterman, Chief Operating Officer, SAFE-BioPharma Assn. "This extends the options for private sector and federal relying parties who use our framework, increasing interoperability and security for their electronic transactions."

Equifax's FICAM certification for NIST LOA 3 aligns with the White House initiative to make online transactions more trustworthy. The White House effort, called the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC), works to protect individuals, businesses, and public agencies from the high costs of cyber-crimes like identity theft and fraud, while simultaneously helping to ensure that the Internet continues to support innovation and be a thriving marketplace of products and ideas. Equifax was among the first organizations to be approved at LOA 1 and is a founding member of the Open Identity Exchange (OIX) which worked with the General Services Administration (GSA) to establish the identity proofing requirements met by the various levels of service components.